No deeds with property

wilhelmina1010

Hi Forum,
Any advice would be much appreciated! My partner and myself are intrested in making an offer on a property we like which had previously been under offer. At first the agent said there was a problem with the deeds that he wanted sorted before he made further viewings on the property but we pushed for a viewing as we were going on holiday.

We have since returned from holiday and had an offer on our property which we have accepted. Today I have contacted the agent to enquire if the problem with the deeds is sorted. What he's told me is that because the deeds are missing anyone buying the property would have to risk someone making a claim of ownership within the next ten years. As you can imagine, we wouldn't want to buy a property with any risk of this happening, surely, this isn't the first property to be sold under these circumstances? Is there anyway of safeguarding against this or am I best avioding all together?

The agent said that the solicitors would insure against any future claim and that the person who had previously offered on it had withdrawn because they had been spooked by this, although, their bank were still prepared to lend on it.

Any advice much appreciated.

bigc2910

Hi we are going through the same, basically you will be granted a possesory title which with an indemnity insurance policy (paid for by the vendor) is fairly watertight. Some lenders WONT give a mortgage though under those terms,but many will. You can after 12 years apply for a full title, and if you choose to sell before that it can put some buyers off as even though you will provide the same indemnity policy it can spook some people. Personally we have got a great opportunity to obtain a house that many are put off buy through ignorance. The only other thing I will say is it can take time to reconstruct the title for a possesory title to be granted! Think thats the gist,and Ive no legal mind just a mum of three done a bit of research owing to our situation! HTH x

bigc2910

Oh and it wont be the fact theres no deeds, more so that the house was never registered in the first place with the land registry as most things are done online now!

DVardysShadow

bigc2910 wrote: »

Oh and it wont be the fact theres no deeds, more so that the house was never registered in the first place with the land registry as most things are done online now!

More accurately, it will be the fact there are no deeds, because if a property was established before the Land Reg and it has not changed hands since compulsory registration, then it would be entirely normal for the property to have deeds.

DVardysShadow

bigc2910 wrote: »

More accuratley, if the deeds were available at the time of your counties compulsory registration then the fact the deeds are now lost is irrelavant. As the property would now be registered boundries n all! More accuratley that is. Deeds are lost refer to my first post.

Your fundamental mistake is to think that the date of compulsory registartion is the date at which all properties are registered.

Once you understand that the date of compulsory registration is the date from which all changes to property ownership must be registered, you will see that if the property in question has not changed hands on or after the date of compulsory registration, you would expect deeds to be available. And so, when you are told there are no deeds, this means not only that it is not registered, but also that there are no deeds and there is a real problem. It is far from bing so bland as

Oh and it wont be the fact theres no deeds, more so that the house was never registered in the first place with the land registry as most things are done online now!

wilhelmina1010

Thank you for the replies. It would appear that it's not an insurmountable issue by what you say. I'm hoping to port my A&L mortgage and top it up with a new mortgage from Santander I'm hoping it won't be an issue for them.

wilhelmina1010

I have just been to view the property again this morning and have somemore information about the property and it isn't as simple as just the deeds being missing. Apparently, the person who we assume owned the property died and had gone bankrupt the probate period has passed and the court of protection is dealing with the house sale. The Solicitors dealing with the sale say they have "rebuilt" the deeds with an "indemnity policy" it all sounds rather frightning. The property is on the market for £159k we have offered £148 as it needs a lot of work. The agent said he will put the offer forward but thinks they won't accept any less than £154k. I would have thought considering the last offer fell through my offer was reasonable. We'll see.

wilhelmina1010

My offer of 148k was declined. The agents original valuation was based on the house not having the problem with the deeds. Should I walk away from this one?